Release Date: November 13, 2012 on the PS3, Xbox 360, and PC. November 18th on the Wii U.​

Developed by: Treyarch​

Published by: Activision​

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Box/Cover Art:​

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About the Game (Wikipedia mostly): Call of Duty: Black Ops II is the ninth game in the best-selling video game series Call of Duty, and a direct sequel to 2010's Call of Duty: Black Ops. Instead of the modern or historical settings of previous iterations of the long-running franchise, Black Ops II will take place both in the 1970's and 80's as well as 2025. Another major innovation is the addition of branching storylines driven by player choice, a first for the series.​

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Campaign Details: The campaign will feature two separate, connected storylines. One takes place in the 70's and 80's. This section will have players control Alex Mason, the protagonist of the original Black Ops, as he fights for the United States against the Soviet Union in the Cold War. Confirmed locations include Central America, Afghanistan, and Angola. It will showcase the rise of Raul Menendez, the primary antagonist of the game. As for the 2025 section, it will allow players to play as David Mason, the son of Alex, in a new Cold War between China and the United States. This section will take place in Los Angeles, Singapore, Yemen, and other locales.​

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Strike Force Missions: As mentioned previously, Black Ops II will be the first Call of Duty game to incorporate branching storylines. The storyline will be affected by special "Strike Force" missions that take place in the 2025 storyline and feature permanent death. Some of these missions are mutually exclusive, meaning that playing all of them will require multiple playthroughs. A defining feature in these missions is the ability to use high-tech military technology such as UAV's, planes, and robots. A character that dies in Strike Force missions will be absent from the rest of the game, and this can have ramifications on the overall storyline, including the outcome of the Cold War.​

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Zombies: Black Ops II will once again feature a Nazi Zombies game mode, a staple of Treyarch's Call of Duty games. However, there will be a zombie specific campaign in addition to the regular campaign and the usual survival type mode. The game mode will also feature the multiplayer engine and allow up to 8 players to take on the zombie horde, as opposed to 4 players in World at War and Black Ops. For those that preorder the Hardened or Care Package editions of the game, Nuketown from the original Black Ops will be remade into a zombies map.​

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Multiplayer: While not much is known about the multiplayer modes, there are several confirmed innovations. "Multi-Team" games will be an option for the first time, in which 3 or more teams can compete in the same game. The Create a Class system has also been revised. Killstreaks have been changed to Score Streaks, which reward players for completing objective-specific actions in addition to killing enemy players in order to shift the focus toward a more team oriented goal.​

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Special Editions: Black Ops II will be available in several versions:​

Digital Deluxe Edition ($79.99): Includes the Call of Duty Black Ops II game as a PC download, as well as the Nuketown Zombies map, Nuketown 2025 map, an exclusive weapon camo, 2 player card backgrounds, the soundtrack for Black Ops II, and a digital download of Call of Duty: World at War.​

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Preorder Bonuses: ​

All stores will include the Nuketown 2025 map download as a preorder bonus. Preordering from Amazon also includes a free wallpaper. Gamestop's preorder bonuses come in 4 waves:​

Wave 3: The customer can choose between a digital theme or avatar, an entry in the Treyarch VIP Experience Sweepstakes, and a Turtle Beach Ear Force X-Ray Gaming Sweepstakes entry.​

Wave 4: Wave 4 will be released Monday, October 8th at 12:00 noon EST.​

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Screenshots/Pictures:​

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Trailers:​

So there it is, get ready for quite possibly the biggest video game launch of all time! Use this thread to create clans, talk about the game, add anything (speculative or concrete) I might have missed, and basically do anything related to the game. And the reason there are only 2 screenshots is because it would only let me upload 4.

after watching videos I was really impressed with this game. im not a huge COD fan but I played BO and it wasnt as bad a MP game as MW2 and MW3. BO2 looks soo much better than all three of those. I look forward to playing with/vs you guys.

Sounds like they're using a little of the Bioware formula in SP. This could get interesting...

Squad that gets killed off and changes parts of your story? Something tells me it won't be anything significant. Especially in a game that isn't about SP. Probably just marketing blah. We'll see though. Can Treyarch finally make a damn SP campaign worth playing? Because just about every FPS campaign today is boring...

CoD founded itself on SP. It should be a higher priority. Considering all the money they make, I don't think it's unreasonable to look at these games having a complete SP/MP experience. Which they never do...

Sounds like they're using a little of the Bioware formula in SP. This could get interesting...

Squad that gets killed off and changes parts of your story? Something tells me it won't be anything significant. Especially in a game that isn't about SP. Probably just marketing blah. We'll see though. Can Treyarch finally make a damn SP campaign worth playing? Because just about every FPS campaign today is boring...

CoD founded itself on SP. It should be a higher priority. Considering all the money they make, I don't think it's unreasonable to look at these games having a complete SP/MP experience. Which they never do...

Click to expand...

I loved the SP for CoD4 and BO, none of the others though. I think it'll be quite good. I'm just concerned with the length, they're usually 5-7 hours, which is pretty wimpy for such a high-budget game.

Sounds like they're using a little of the Bioware formula in SP. This could get interesting...

Squad that gets killed off and changes parts of your story? Something tells me it won't be anything significant. Especially in a game that isn't about SP. Probably just marketing blah. We'll see though. Can Treyarch finally make a damn SP campaign worth playing? Because just about every FPS campaign today is boring...

CoD founded itself on SP. It should be a higher priority. Considering all the money they make, I don't think it's unreasonable to look at these games having a complete SP/MP experience. Which they never do...

Click to expand...

I loved the SP for CoD4 and BO, none of the others though. I think it'll be quite good. I'm just concerned with the length, they're usually 5-7 hours, which is pretty wimpy for such a high-budget game.

Click to expand...

They're short because shooters are simple by design in their mechanics. It's purely about shooting and not much else. They're extremely repetitive by nature. Would you seriously sit down and play a CoD game for 15 hours without complaining how repetitive it gets?

The only way that's possible is if they start adding mechanics to offset the repetitiveness. Borderlands gives you endless customization on characters as an example. It's not purely running around blasting heads off with little point. Don't tell me you play the CoD games for story.

Sounds like they're using a little of the Bioware formula in SP. This could get interesting...

Squad that gets killed off and changes parts of your story? Something tells me it won't be anything significant. Especially in a game that isn't about SP. Probably just marketing blah. We'll see though. Can Treyarch finally make a damn SP campaign worth playing? Because just about every FPS campaign today is boring...

CoD founded itself on SP. It should be a higher priority. Considering all the money they make, I don't think it's unreasonable to look at these games having a complete SP/MP experience. Which they never do...

Click to expand...

I loved the SP for CoD4 and BO, none of the others though. I think it'll be quite good. I'm just concerned with the length, they're usually 5-7 hours, which is pretty wimpy for such a high-budget game.

Click to expand...

They're short because shooters are simple by design in their mechanics. It's purely about shooting and not much else. They're extremely repetitive by nature. Would you seriously sit down and play a CoD game for 15 hours without complaining how repetitive it gets?

The only way that's possible is if they start adding mechanics to offset the repetitiveness. Borderlands gives you endless customization on characters as an example. It's not purely running around blasting heads off with little point. Don't tell me you play the CoD games for story.

Click to expand...

I don't know anyone who would sit down and play any game for 15 hours.

I loved the SP for CoD4 and BO, none of the others though. I think it'll be quite good. I'm just concerned with the length, they're usually 5-7 hours, which is pretty wimpy for such a high-budget game.

Click to expand...

They're short because shooters are simple by design in their mechanics. It's purely about shooting and not much else. They're extremely repetitive by nature. Would you seriously sit down and play a CoD game for 15 hours without complaining how repetitive it gets?

The only way that's possible is if they start adding mechanics to offset the repetitiveness. Borderlands gives you endless customization on characters as an example. It's not purely running around blasting heads off with little point. Don't tell me you play the CoD games for story.

Click to expand...

I don't know anyone who would sit down and play any game for 15 hours.

Click to expand...

I didn't mean in a single sitting...

I remember playing through Darksiders and that's one game that didn't benefit itself by being long. My god was that game repetitive. The combat was so boring and simple. If that game was about 10 hours, I think it would be a pretty darn good game. But it ended up being about 15-20 hours. It felt meaningless. All I wanted to do is get the game over with. I couldn't imagine playing through a FPS game like CoD with a 15 hour story. No thank you. Unless they did something like add a ton of RPG elements.

I think Half-Life 2 had about a 10-15 hour SP campaign and it was great. But they told their story very well and nothing was really like it when it first came out. I could only stomach seeing Michael Bay set piece after set piece going on. That's basically how the CoD story/campaign rolls. I use to love the campaign in that franchise. Especially the early CoD games. They almost purely focused on campaign in CoD1/CoD2. It's stale now, IMO.

They're short because shooters are simple by design in their mechanics. It's purely about shooting and not much else. They're extremely repetitive by nature. Would you seriously sit down and play a CoD game for 15 hours without complaining how repetitive it gets?

The only way that's possible is if they start adding mechanics to offset the repetitiveness. Borderlands gives you endless customization on characters as an example. It's not purely running around blasting heads off with little point. Don't tell me you play the CoD games for story.

Click to expand...

I don't know anyone who would sit down and play any game for 15 hours.

Click to expand...

I didn't mean in a single sitting...

I remember playing through Darksiders and that's one game that didn't benefit itself by being long. My god was that game repetitive. The combat was so boring and simple. If that game was about 10 hours, I think it would be a pretty darn good game. But it ended up being about 15-20 hours. It felt meaningless. All I wanted to do is get the game over with. I couldn't imagine playing through a FPS game like CoD with a 15 hour story. No thank you. Unless they did something like add a ton of RPG elements.

I think Half-Life 2 had about a 10-15 hour SP campaign and it was great. But they told their story very well and nothing was really like it when it first came out. I could only stomach seeing Michael Bay set piece after set piece going on. That's basically how the CoD story/campaign rolls. I use to love the campaign in that franchise. Especially the early CoD games. They almost purely focused on campaign in CoD1/CoD2. It's stale now, IMO.

Click to expand...

Yeah, but they are just too quick. I usually beat the campaign within a week of the game coming out, it feels thrown in at the end.

All FPS games basically do the exact same thing with their SP campaigns. It's so played out and boring. When I look at HL2, it's just further proof at how many games copy each other these days. It was amazing then because the immersion was unbeatable. Now, every FPS game does that kind of immersion. And to add to it, they try to make it a Hollywood Michael Bay movie. It's annoying. I don't know why this generation is so infatuated with cinematic presentation at the sacrifice of gameplay. It needs to stop though. Maybe then games would actually see their budget cut in half and actually allow us to play the damn game again.

I'll probably get it. I really liked black ops, I didn't buy MW3 so I will buy Black Ops II. Hopefully they do a much better job on the PS3 version of Black Ops II then they did with the first Black Ops. I wont pre-order it, I will wait for a few days after release to see if people are experiencing difficulty joining friends, etc etc.

So what are all the zombie details? It has its own story and supports up to 8 people now? Do we have any other details?

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NDA's were lifted a week or so ago for people already playing but zombie stuff has been pretty quiet. Maybe Treyarch still has NDA's up for some things in the game.

Yes it has its own campaign mode with multiple settings, and the 8 player mode is called Grief or something and is basically one team of 4 trying to outlive the other team of 4 and the teams can't kill each other but can sabotage each other in various ways. Could be cool, could be a gimmick, we'll see. There's also custom games for Zombies now, which will be awesome.

Sounds cool, zombies never quite hooked for me. I didn't like the idea of having to buy the guns and finding the locations you can actually buy them around the map. Also, I remember playing the mansion level in BO and pretty much taking most of the enemies out and it not being clear what you were suppose to do.